Recent DNA analysis of ancient Vikings reveals that women also accompanied men in their conquests.
Vikings mainly originated in Scandinavia; they raided and pillaged other vast regions of Northwestern Europe, including the British Isles. The Vikings are still well known for their ships, which they used to cross water bodies such as the North Sea.
The Vikings, also known as the Norsemen, plundered and killed people during their raids. They terrorized the people of France, Germany and Britain for many decades.
A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Oslo in Norway shows that Vikings were not just raiders; they were also involved in farming and trading. DNA analysis of Vikings also reveals that Viking women played an important role in colonization.
"It looks like women were a more significant part of the colonization process compared to what was believed earlier," says Jan Bill, an archaeologist and the curator of the Viking burial ship collection at the Museum of Cultural History, a part of the University of Oslo.
Erika Hagelberg, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oslo, who is also co-author of the study, explains that the research included extracting teeth and parts of bones from 45 Viking skeletons from 796 A.D to 1066 A.D. These skeletons were excavated from different parts of Norway.
Hagelberg says that the research team examined the DNA carried in the mitochondria, which is supposed to be the energy powerhouses of a cell. Mitochondria are located in the cytoplasm of a woman's egg and are passed on from a mother to her child, which can help determine the maternal lineage.
The researchers conducted a DNA analysis of more than 5,000 people from various parts of Europe and from nearly 70 ancient Icelanders. The study found that ancient Viking genetics matched very closely with the maternal DNA present in the modern people of Sweden, Scotland and England. However, the genetics of ancient Vikings were more closely connected to people who live in Shetland Islands and in Orkney, which are closer to Scandinavia.
Bill, who was not involved in the study, suggests that the Vikings did not bring along women and family on their initial conquests. However, as the raiding became frequent, women and even children accompanied Viking men and helped in their colonization efforts.
The study was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
